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6.7K Messages

Tuesday, October 21st, 2014 7:48 PM

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How to Troubleshoot your DVR/Receivers

If you're having trouble with your receivers, as listed below, scroll down to find steps to resolve them. For Wireless TV Receiver help, check out our Wireless Receiver Solution page. 

  • Receiver resets

  • Loss of recordings

  • Pixilation

  • Freezing

  • Gear/ Cog, Red X, Client Unprovisioned, or Client Initialization Error

Rebooting the receiver is the quickest way to resolve most service issues:

  • Press and hold the power button(located on the left side of the receiver) for 10 seconds.

  • Unplugging the power cord from the wall outlet for 10 seconds is another option.

 

 

Surge Protectors

Is the receiver plugged into a surge protector? It may be causing: 

  • unwanted receiver resets

  • loss of recordings

  • pixilation

  • freezing

  • complete failure of the receiver

Plugging the receiver into a wall outlet, in some instances, can resolve most picture disruption issues. If you must use a power strip, use the surge protectors that are designed for high powered electronics.

 

Receiver Connections

Make sure all connections (wall to receiver, receiver to TV) are placed firmly into the receiver. 

Note: If you are using a 3rd party switch to connect the receivers, remove it and test. Some switches have been known to interfere with the signal.

 

 

To avoid losing your saved programs, perform the Non-Disaster Recovery for DVR/Receivers:

  1. Unplug the receiver or DVR power cord from the wall or back of the box.

  2. Wait 10 seconds.

  3. Plug in the receiver and DVR.

  4. When three white dots appear on the screen, unplug the receiver/DVR again.

  5. Repeat this process two more times.

  6. Plug the receiver/DVR back in on the third time and leave in. Three white dots appear followed by a gear with a status bar at the bottom of the screen. If the Recovery screen does not appear, repeat the steps above.

If you are still experiencing issues with your DVR after that, perform a Disaster Recovery on the device.

 

Disaster Recovery for DVR/Receivers:
WARNING!: Disaster Recovery steps will cause your DVR to lose all pre-existing data such as: Recordings, Parental control settings, and aspect ratio settings.                                                                                                 

  1. Using the above image as guidance, hold down the Down arrow key + OK key +Power key outlined in red at the same time to power down the DVR.

  2. Continue pressing these keys until a gear appears on the screen and release the Down arrow + OK keys.

  3. If the gear on the TV screen appears, wait until completion.

  4. If the gear on the TV screen does not appear, repeat the disaster recovery process. 

AT&T Community Specialist

*I am an AT&T employee, and the postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent AT&T's position, strategies or opinions.

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4 Attachments

Scholar

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602 Messages

7 years ago

@ATTU-verseCare Whoever wrote/edited this guide should be fired.  

  • It's over 2 years old and nobody caught the fact that it says "client unporvisioned" instead of what I'm assuming should be "client unprovisioned"
  • You show the graphic for destructive recovery above the non-destructive recovery section.  Someone could easily get confused and end up erasing all their recordings for no reason.

Community Support

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231.3K Messages

7 years ago

Hi @madmax988,

 

Around the time this started to happen, did anything change? Power loss? New equipment added? 

 

A full reset of the system, modem and receivers may resolve the issues you are having. Also, surge protectors have been known to cause issues and over time, cause permanent damage to the box. If any are in use, remove them and plug all of our devices into a wall outlet. 

 

-ATTU-verseCare

Scholar

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602 Messages

7 years ago

 

@ATTHelpForums   

  • No power loss.
  • No new equipment
  • As far as a full reset.  I did a non-destructive recovery on the DVR. I reset RG by unplugging for 30 seconds and plugging back in. I reset all the STBS  and as I mentioned I had to unplug the AP bridge to fix the problem with one of the wireless receivers.  Is there anything I missed in doing a full reset?
  • In terms of power issues, I can assure you that's not the issue.  AT&T Uverse blamed my house's electrical system and grounding issues when I problems about a year ago and refused to work on system till I had it fixed.  I had the local electric company out to check, who said there was no grounding issue after checking as suggested by AT&T.  I then had an electrician come, and run a brand new independent circuit with only AT&T equipment on it so that AT&T couldn't blame my wiring.  Then you finally came out and replaced RG and STB what a surprise it was bad AT&T equipment and not my perfectly fine electrical system causing the problem.  
  • How could a surge protector possibly effect equipment?  Literally all a surge protector is doing is passing along power and shutting down if the power spikes, its not like its a Universal Power Supply (UPS).  Although even a UPS should only improve not worsen things.
  • Update as of 1/29/17
    • Problem #1:The playback problems have gotten better, but are still happening a few times a day.
    • Problem #2: The numbers are still not in sync although things do eventually seem to get removed from app list.
    • Problem #3: Has not happened again yet.
    • Also yesterday the system had a restart receivers message on some of the receivers.
    • I have been getting some FEC errors in random bursts, but even so, the numbers seem to be fairly minimal.  No errorred seconds or CRC errors.

Thank you for looking into this.

Community Support

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231.3K Messages

7 years ago

Hi,

 

We are glad to see it is getting better. If still having issues, we may want to try to change the DVR to a different DVR type.

 

With a surge protector, just like any piece of equipment, it can go bad. So if one of the outlets on the surge protector is defective, or has some corrosion on it, you may notice some power issues. We just suggest removing it for troubleshooting purposes, and it shortens the chance of error by removing additional equipment.

 

-ATTU-verseCare

Scholar

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602 Messages

7 years ago

I am still having issues, as I stated.  

  • Problem #1 is still happening.
  • As well as Problem #2. 
    • Problem #2 clearly seems like a software issue.  Do you have any suggested solutions for this/
  • What are the different types of DVRs?  do you just mean a different model?
  • and as stated unless its absolutely the only option left, I don't want to swap DVR's as I've found often that doesn't solve the problem and yet I still have to deal with losing all my recordings.  Since I watch all my tv recorded, losing recordings is essentially like paying for television service I never get to watch.  It's not like AT&T is going to buy me all the episodes I lose.
  • I will plug dvr directly into wall for testing purposes.  I'll also go buy a brand new surge protector.  Does AT&T have a suggestion for which surge protector is approved? Although I still highly doubt a bad surge protector would still be providing constant power, with no indications of being worn out.

ACE - Expert

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35K Messages

7 years ago

The fact that a non-destructive disaster recovery fixed your issues, but only for a while, leads me to believe that your DVR's hard drive is failing.  Maybe not, but that's the way I'd bet.

Bad surge protectors, that are providing no surge protection, can still pass power.  And surge protectors that are still providing some surge protection can introduce RF noise into the line.

 

 

Scholar

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602 Messages

7 years ago

  1. The non-destructive recovery didn't fix anything.
  2. I guess, it just seems odd that AT&T equipment could really be that sensitive to a bad surge protector, I've work in IT with 100's of surge protectors, and when they've gone bad it's usually pretty cut and dry.  In my experience they either work or they don't work.  Every once in a while you see a really old one that still works but has a light that flickers, but those I replace.  The one my DVR happens to be plugged into now, isn't all that old, but just to be sure I'll swap it out with a fresh one.  It is annoying though that AT&T blames everything else when everytime I've ever had a problem it's ended up turning out to be either bad hardware, bad software (that nobody at at&t knows how to fix or has the capability to even investigate, they jusy swap hardware to a different model in the hopes that'll fix it, since it'll happen to have different software preloaded), or a AT&T wiring issue.  I just feel little burned after spending $400 on electrical work last time to solve a non-existent problem, that ended up just needing some new equipment, and a new cat5 wire pulled due to a damaged wire half a dozen technicians didn't notice when inspecting)
  3. Can a bad surge protector explain why the UVERSE website and APP are having the problem I'm seeing?

Contributor

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1 Message

7 years ago

at least 4 times a day the tv will freeze up and then switches to a blue or fuzzy screen?  After it does this we have to reset everything!!!!! Next all recordings are gone and has not recorded anything new?  When I log into my account I have a note that says DVR has reached maximum capacity but there is nothing on it??????

 

If this doesn't get resolved will have to cancel att not worth the money I have to pay every month to no have it work.  Should get reimbursed.

Contributor

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1 Message

7 years ago

One of my receivers keeps getting an error that network settings have changed and a restart is necessary. When it is working, the picture often freezes for a few seconds at a time, over and over again. Inhave done several resets to no avail.

Contributor

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1 Message

7 years ago

My TV programs are frequently interrupted with a message that states that U-verse service signal has been lost.  The message states to try rebooting of the TV receiver after, first, checking to see if the problem exists on other stations.  Also states that if the TV receiver rebooting doesn't work, then to try rebooting the "gateway".  I have tried both of these; sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.  If I do nothing, the program will come back on after a few minutes, but then it will happen again in 2 or 3 minutes or maybe after 2 or 3 hours.  This is very annoying and has been going on now for several weeks.  It caused me to miss some exciting minutes in NCAA tournament basketball games recently.

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